by Shey Stahl
I smiled at Arie and she did the same. It was nice.
Casten walked by with Gray on his shoulders, neither one of them with a shirt on. “Do you have sunscreen on her?” Arie asked, scowling at him that he had Gray out in the sun with no shirt on, her pants hanging down like a plumber and red cowboy boots on her. Oh, and his hat on her head backwards. I rarely saw that kid, or my brother, fully dressed.
I just hoped that changed when she got a little older.
Casten came over to us under the awning. Sitting Gray down, she climbed up inside the golf cart with Tommy, chewing on her binkie she still hadn’t let go of.
Casten pressed his finger to his lips and looked at Arie, speaking in a hushed tone. “I got sunscreen on her when she was sleeping. Don’t tell her.”
All of us laughed when Gray turned to Casten and glared, staring at her skin offensively. “No, Daddy.”
We were sitting there for about five minutes, making fun of Tommy when a new driver walked by and handed Arie his form. “This goes to you, right?” He stared down at her, his head tipped and really stared at her. He may have been wearing sunglasses, but none of us sitting there missed the way he was looking at her.
“Yeah, it does…” Arie looked at the form. “Kip?”
“Yeah, Kip Nessen.” The Kip guy looked up when Rager walked up to his motorhome we were all standing by. He nodded at all of us, his silent hello, and gave Kip an appraising look before sitting beside Arie.
Rager was cocky. To the point that it was actually entertaining at times to see him get into with people, because you knew damn well he, one, had the talent to back the arrogance up, but two, if it involved his looks, he didn’t exactly have to work to get laid when he wanted.
Kip continued to stare at Arie, and Rager cleared his throat. “Waitin’ on somethin’?”
Low laughter broke out between Casten and Tommy, but I didn’t smile. I wasn’t sure what this Kip guy was going to do when he took off his sunglasses and tucked them in the collar of his shirt. “Nope.” And then he turned and walked away.
Arie turned her head and stared at Rager, waiting for him to say something. But he didn’t. He only smiled at her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulled her slightly closer. “I’ve got enough competition with one guy. I don’t need another one.”
That got everyone laughing, including Arie.
Every week felt a little like it used to. It’s been eight months since Jack passed away and we were joking again. Once Tommy started in, Willie fed off him. If I was smiling or laughing, it lightened the mood between all of us. One thing would never be the same, but with time, it was getting easier to smile more.
Lily
Radiator Cap - A pressure sealed cap located on top of the radiator. It allows the cooling system to operate under high pressure for greater efficiency. Always use caution when removing the radiator cap from a warm radiator.
IT WAS LATE JUNE when I knew I needed to talk to Axel. For months, I had avoided him. If he called, my dad answered the phone. The boys hadn’t seen him since May and I knew June and July, they wouldn’t either because of his schedule. He was more focused than ever, and winning races. In fact, this month he was on the cover of Sprint Car magazine and Racers Edge, two magazines his father had been on countless times. I didn’t read the articles, but I did look at the photographs. Part of me wanted to see him, see if anything about him had changed. Would there be a girl with him on victory lane celebrating?
Nothing in any of the pictures indicated he was seeing anyone. They all had either him alone, or Tommy and Willie with him. In every issue, they did photographs of what they called ‘Intensity.’ It was where they would photograph a driver at a track showing their intensity in the moment. This time they had Axel in there.
The caption below it read: Axel Riley at Williams Grove Speedway.
For the last three years, Rager had dominated that weekend in Mechanicsburg. This time Axel won both nights. I must have stared at that photograph for twenty minutes. So much was behind his stare. They could have caught him at any moment that night, but it looked like it was directly following a heat race since he still had his earbuds in and his hair was sticking up in all directions. It looked wet, probably from sweat, and I swore right then I could smell his scent. Closing my eyes, I imagined it in detail, the thick heady aroma of dirt mixing with methanol. The feel of the sun hitting my face brought back the memory of us in the pits when he first told me he loved me, and the way the rays of shined down on his hair.
“I…love you, Lily,” Axel had said, watching my reaction as if he thought for sure I didn’t feel that way, too. We were fourteen when he’d said it. Just fourteen. We may not have known what love meant back then, but we felt it. We always had.
Opening my eyes, I stared at the photograph again. Very clearly, his eyes popped out to me and the force behind them. I’d always said this, Axel didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but something about him changed that night in the Florida. Maybe it was what he’d needed, but there was a new edge to the way he looked, raced, and acted. I watched every interview on him I could find and the recent video JAR Racing loaded from that weekend in Williams Grove. He’d found that desire he’d always had.
While the boys cackled and screamed, running around in my parents’ backyard in just their swim shorts, chasing one another with squirt guns, I lay in a lounge chair with that magazine in my lap.
My mom approached two glasses of sweet tea in hand, and stared at my slightly swollen stomach. “Have you called him?”
I startled when I saw her, closing the magazine and tossing it in the grass beside me. “What am I going to say?”
“Tell him the truth, Lily.”
She was right. I needed to. The longer I waited, the worse it would be. I was now four months pregnant and just starting to show.
Mom gave me that look, the one where she was going to give me her motherly advice. Even if I didn’t want it. “You suffered an unimaginable loss, Lily. You have three wonderful kids who need you. Jonah and Jacen, they need their mother and father in their lives. Both of them.”
If there was anyone who understood what I was dealing with, it was my mom. She knew me well enough to feel what I was feeling just because I was her daughter. “Every time I look at them”—my eyes focused on Jace, and then Jonah, both laughing and having fun like little boys should—“I think about what it’s going to be like to lose them, too.”
“Don’t think like that.” Mom handed me my ice tea. “You can’t think like that.”
Lately, my mom and my dad had been my voice of reason. Dad retired this year and hadn’t raced a single Outlaw race. I knew Mom enjoyed having him around and I did too, but it seemed he was the one trying to convince me I needed to talk to Axel. And I did. I was just now to the point where I was petrified of what Axel would say to me.
The boys convinced my mom to join in the water fight, and that was when my dad came outside wearing his own board shorts, holding a squirt gun.
“What are you doing?” he asked me, like I shouldn’t be lying around. It was a good question because there I was, staying with my parents with two kids and one on the way. Oh, and I had no job, went to therapy once a week and cried every night. I was almost certain everyone wondered what the hell I was doing.
“What?” I tried to act as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Here?” Dad’s eyes went to the magazine in the grass. “Is it because you want to be or are you avoiding Axel?”
“I filed for divorce.” And then I sighed. “But Axel won’t sign the papers.”
“Lily…” The look on his face gave way to his disappointment. “Why did you do that? Because he found you with Shane? You never gave him a chance to say anything and now you’re running from him.”
“I don’t need you to make me feel worse about this,” I snapped back at him. For the longest time, my father was against the idea of me getting married so young. It had nothing to do with me
marrying Axel. It was me being eighteen. Yet there he was defending him.
“And now you’re pregnant.” It wasn’t a question, and I should have known my mom would have told him about the test I took last month.
“Dad…”
“I’m not judging you. I’m just trying to help you.” He held the squirt gun up. “Just…call him. I have a water fight to win.”
I didn’t know how long I intended to stay in Indiana, but I felt like I would know when it changed. And at that moment, it hadn’t changed.
Axel
Break Wear Sensor - On a drum braking system a brake wear sensor is a device on a brake shoe that signals the driver when the lining of friction material is worn down.
IT WAS MID-JULY and I was one, winning races for the first time in my career, and two, giving into desires. Ones I shouldn’t.
I was at the shop late one night, in the back office, signing merchandise when Olivia showed up. I knew exactly what she wanted when she closed and locked the door behind her. It’s something she’d always wanted.
Nervously I stood with the Sharpie in my hand. “I…uh…” By the look on her face, my words fell short because not only did she look good, I didn’t know what the fuck to say. Ordinarily, I denied women, and had to often at the tracks. Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Her arms wrapped around me pressing her body flush against mine. My hands stayed on her hips. Her shirt was cut low, drawing my eyes to her chest. “Olivia…I don’t know…” I pulled back, creating distance.
She didn’t let me finish before her mouth was on mine. It felt good. Physical contact had a way of reminding you how badly you wanted it.
Was that why Lily did it?
Olivia shook her head and pushed against my chest making me sit back down in the chair. Immediately, she straddled me, her hips lining up with mine. Probably because it had been a while, but I was hard and she knew it. “Axel…please? I’ve wanted you for so long.” Her hips rocked against mine. “And I know you want me.”
“Olivia…I’m still married.”
Her eyes searched mine, trying to decide if I was really denying her. “Are you sure? I thought…well, she left you.”
My head fell back against the chair, my hands scrubbing over my face at the reminder that she had left. The cool metal on my ring finger, which I hadn’t removed, a reminder that it wasn’t over for me. “I know…but I just can’t.”
I didn’t think I needed to explain this to Olivia. I didn’t need to explain it to anyone.
Her kiss was sudden, capturing my mouth with an intensity I hadn’t felt in a long time. At first, I returned the kiss, franticly even, as if just the feel of her mouth excited me and pushed me forward. Olivia sensed that and rocked her hips into mine. Pleasure shot through my entire body just to have the contact down there. My body shook from the need to take this further, my hands moving from the arms of the chair to her face, deepening the kiss. Olivia arched her back into me, angling her hips again and rocking with a little more pace this time, slow, with a grinding motion I found incredibly satisfying. In that moment, I didn’t care who was on my lap, I just wanted this.
My hands moved again, to her ass while Olivia’s traveled up my chest and threaded tightly in my hair. Our mouths welded together again, my tongue caressing hers and I never wanted it to end. It wasn’t even that it was Olivia, it didn’t matter. It was that finally I felt something, if only just for the moment.
The air conditioner kicking on startled me, and was really what brought me back to reality because by that point, my jeans were undone, my shirt was off and Olivia’s bra was being taken off. A memory hit me right then, slammed right into my gut like a knife. It was the one of Lily on this very table to my right, naked, as I made love to her.
This was wrong because right then, I wished so badly that this was Lily on me. But it wasn’t.
“Shit…” I jerked back, gasping, my hands on her shoulders. “I can’t do this.”
She looked alarmed, and then the rejection hit her like a slap to the face. “You’re not with her anymore.”
I held up my hand, the one where I was still wearing my ring. “But I’m still married.”
Olivia seemed to know what that meant and reached around to fasten her bra. With one last look, she peered down at my flushed face, regretfully. “Are you sure?”
Chuckling, I leaned forward, still trying to catch my breath and kissed her cheek. “I’m sure. You’re very beautiful and I want to…but I can’t do it. If I do, I’m no better than her and that’s not me.”
Olivia picked her shirt and mine up off the floor, tossing mine at me. It hit me in the chest, as I untangled it and slipped it over my head. She smiled at me. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Locking up the shop, I wasn’t proud of myself after Olivia left. I did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do while I was still technically married to Lily.
It didn’t matter to me that she did. I wasn’t that guy who cheated on his wife.
And now, in some ways, I had. I’d kissed Olivia. I fuckin’ made out with her in the office, the same place I’d had sex with Lily on the table one night and she’d gotten pregnant with Jacen.
I sent Rager a text as I sat in my truck, not knowing what else to do. If I called my dad, he’d be upset. Casten…he was on a date with Hayden.
Wanna get a beer?
Sure. He replied, almost immediately.
Maybe he knew I needed a friend or maybe he just needed one, too.
RAGER CROSSED HIS ARMS over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “You okay?”
Over the years I’d become good friends with Rager. He’d been to all my kids’ birthday parties, my wedding, pretty much made an appearance at our family holidays. I trusted him.
I shouldn’t have a problem talking to him either. The thing was I couldn’t talk about this.
I didn’t want to talk. It was just the topic of how I was doing.
“I’m fine.” I stared at the ground doing anything I could to avoid him.
Rager’s weight shifted from one foot to the other; he wanted to say something more. Pry. Tell me I could talk to him if needed. But just like everyone else, he didn’t know how to do that.
I knew Rager was sorry. Felt bad. He was there, quick to get to Jack as well. He saw the whole thing.
The waitress took our order for some chicken wings and two pitchers of beer. Rager’s eyes were on the televisions mounted in the corners of the bar, replaying the highlights or various sporting events. As usual, NASCAR was on and it made me think about Easton.
“Does it bother you that Arie is around?”
He laughed, raising an eyebrow at me. “Of course you’d ask that. It’s the question everyone’s dying to know, right?”
“Kind of like wanting to know if I’m okay…when really they want to know if seeing my kid die still haunts me, or if my wife cheating on me really sucked ass?”
“Exactly like that.”
“For the record,”—Rager lifted the beer in his hand to his mouth, took a slow drink and then set it back on the coaster—“it ain’t easy seeing her. She knows how to torture me.”
“Why’d you let her marry him? You should have said something.”
“What was I going to say? She seemed happy and her being happy was all that mattered. All that does matter.”
The waitress dropped off our chicken wings and extra napkins. Neither one of us wasted time digging in. I didn’t realize I was that hungry until I saw the food.
Licking my thumb, I looked at Rager sitting across from me. “But you’re miserable.”
Rager thought about that for a moment, his gaze on the chicken wings. Then he looked up at me. “I think you can relate when I say, it mattered that she was happy. My happiness didn’t matter.”
Yeah, I could relate to that. When Lily asked me to quit racing, it didn’t matter that racing had been all I’d ever known. I’ve never even held a regular job before. All that mattered was that
my wife was happy.
“If it means anything, Easton is a great guy.” Rager nodded in agreement as I said the words, but then I continued and I think he wanted to punch me, “But I’ve seen the way you look at her and he doesn’t.”
There was no need to explain because he understood Easton loved my sister. I knew that, too. But devotion to one girl, like Rager had, didn’t even come close to love. There was no way Easton loved Arie like Rager did.
Did I feel that way about Lily?
Love to the point of devotion?
I did…or maybe I still do. Look what just happened between Olivia and me.
The problem was laying over that devotion was a slick track I couldn’t get a grip on. Instead, I was stuck in the ruts, weighted down by the death of my son and infidelity.
Two things I wasn’t sure devotion could survive.
“I almost slept with Olivia,” I blurted out, taking another chicken wing from the red plastic container, and acting like I hadn’t just admitted to that.
He raised his eyebrows, using his forearm to push his hat up. “Oh yeah?”
I wasn’t proud of myself.
It wasn’t but two minutes after I nodded to Rager’s question that Lane showed up at the bar. I was surprised to see him there considering Bailey just had Sawyer not more than a week ago. Figured he’d be at home with his family.
He smiled, gesturing with a nod to the pitcher of beer. “Hey guys, we day-drinking now?”
“My wife filed for divorce, and I almost fucked Olivia in the office,”—I lifted my beer in the air—“like two hours ago.”
Rager lolled his head back looking at Lane. “You know my issues.”
“Rough.” Lane took a seat next to me. “I got nothing on those problems. Other than sleepless nights from a newborn. But my brother, he’d probably have something to compete with.”